Ford has announced the hiring of long time auto analyst and investment banker John Casesa as group vice president, global strategy.
Reporting to president and CEO Mark Fields, Casesa, 52, will be the most senior manager and corporate officer overseeing global strategy and business development and starts on 1 March.
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Fields said “John knows business and the auto industry inside and out. His deep experience and relationships will help guide and shape our global strategies – particularly as we challenge today’s business model and push to innovate to make us even stronger tomorrow.”
Casesa will head the company’s strategic planning globally. This includes helping to steer the company’s investments in new products, technologies and business models supporting the focus on innovation and smart mobility.
Casesa was senior managing director of Guggenheim Partners, where he led the firm’s automotive investment banking activities. In this role since 2010, he advised many of the auto industry’s leading companies and investors on strategic transactions.
Prior to Guggenheim, he spent nearly 20 years as an automotive analyst at Merrill Lynch and Schroders.
He has worked served as a product planning analyst at General Motors and was a co-owner of domestic and import car dealerships in the US northeast region.
Ford said his research during two decades changed the way investors understood many aspects of the auto industry.
In 1991, for example, he created the ‘Car Wars report, which remains a benchmark for measuring automaker product competitiveness. In 2000, his ‘Who Makes the Car’ report presented a new framework for understanding suppliers. In 2005, with World Resources Institute he co-authored ‘Energy Security & Climate Change’ which foretold the clean car revolution.
